


I Think I Need You

by myownremedy



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom, Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Orphans, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownremedy/pseuds/myownremedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo Saverin is Secret Agent 007 for the British Secret Service, M16. Mark Zuckerberg is the Quartermaster, also known as Q. In order to find an ex-agent gone rogue, they must work together or risk losing their leader, M. Skyfall AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think I Need You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaotic4life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaotic4life/gifts).



> TSN Secret Santa 2012 Gift for Chaotic4life! I saw this film exactly once and wrote this fic on an airplane with no internet service so please be kind to me because it sort of meanders.  
> Shout out to my beta, Rai.  
> [Here](http://thesantanetwork.livejournal.com/2960.html) on LJ.  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Skyfall or The Social Network, y’all gay, y’all aren’t even British.  
> edit (4-13-15): this is a transformative work. I make no money off of it. I do not own what inspired this work (Skyfall, The Social Network), but I do own this work itself and hold full copyright over it. Thank you.

The man who recruits Eduardo is slim, blond, and completely unmemorable. Eduardo doesn’t even remember how he was recruited; he just remembers being ushered into M16 by Agent Hughes, who Eduardo later learns has worked very hard to become unmemorable and unremarkable.

Agent Hughes – Chris – teaches Eduardo the ropes. He trains Eduardo, teaches him how to shoot and how to lie. Eduardo needs no help in being unobtrusive. He had learned how to become invisible as a child.

“We’re spies,” Eduardo had said early on in his training, and Chris had shaken his head.

“We’re much more than spies,” he corrects quietly. “We are agents, we are fighters, we are information gathers, we are protectors, we are soldiers…The country wouldn’t function without us. The government would fail. The monarchy would fail. The people would be unsafe. That is our most important job: keeping the people safe.”

This job appeals to Eduardo in a way things rarely do. He enjoys being part of something much bigger than himself, enjoys not knowing all of the information. He enjoys not being held accountable for the political storms that break out across the country, but he also enjoys guessing and piecing together what little information he does have until he has a rough idea of what is going on.

The weather works like that, too. You have a rough idea, but storms rarely give warning signs that are noticed. Now-a-days there are satellites and all sorts of technology, and Eduardo enjoys going home to his flat and watching the multicolored storms swirl across the screen. It calms him down, reminds him no one is truly in charge or in control.

 

When he finishes training, he meets his boss: an ironclad, intimidating women named M. She takes him into her office and insults him quite a lot about the amount of hair gel he use and his cufflinks. Chris later confides that this means M likes him. Eduardo thinks of her as part step-mother, part bulldog, all terrifying. She clears him for service in the field, nicknames him 007 and asks if he wants to take on a pseudonym. He declines, thinking a name like James Bond doesn’t fit him nearly as well as Eduardo Saverin.

“The name is all you have left of your family, isn’t it?” M demands, eyes shrewd. Eduardo nods.

She sighs. “Orphans always make the best recruits. It’s just as well; they won’t be able to use your family against you.”

That terrifies him. He supposes there would be something wrong if it didn’t.

“You can keep your name.” She says graciously, and then kicks him out of her office.

 

Eduardo spends several years with M16, working his way up the ladder; he helps Chris recruit a red headed, goofy kid named Dustin and learns that Dustin is an excellent shot, and that his comedian-persona is excellent for gathering information. It’s all about tactics here: Dustin appears loveable and hilarious, and people tell him everything and invite him into their inner circles because they don’t think he’s a threat, don’t think he’s smart enough to remember what they tell him or notice what they show him. Chris is good at being unmemorable: people will forget he’s there and tell him everything. He’s a chameleon, and has the best Southern American accent that Eduardo has ever heard; it’s hard to believe Chris is Welsh, not North Carolinian, by birth.

And Eduardo? He’s glamorous; a high roller. A front as an investor and entrepreneur enables him to mingle with the socialites, the upper class and the people who have enough money to donate to charities or other causes. It’s incredible how many rich people who donate to charity are also involved in terrorist cells. They ask him for business advice and he listens to morsels they let slip whenever he’s bored at a party. A reputation as someone who likes his drinks enables them to take him seriously as a businessman but not as someone who could destroy them socially; no one respects a drunk.

In truth Eduardo has a very high tolerance for alcohol, is very good at acting drunk but not very good at _getting_ drunk; sometimes he thinks he spends so much of his time lying that he’s become quite bad at the truth.

\---

The call comes when he’s Benghazi. It’s not Chris, not Christy Lee, M’s Secretary, but M herself; that’s how Eduardo knows it’s serious.

“007? We need you. Come home immediately.”

He obeys, feeling a bit like a lapdog and watches the news in the airport of the attack on M16, feels a detached sense of horror at the image of the building he’s worked in for many years being blown sky high.

He meets M at her house, not knowing where else to go, and listens to her lay out the problem as bluntly as ever.

“An ex-agent that I worked with in Hong Kong stole The Facebook The Facebook. It’s an encrypted piece of data with all of our agents name. Every agent that’s hidden in a terrorist cell or other organization, every spy that’s in a government – they’re on The Facebook and now they’re vulnerable, because he sold the damn thing. I have to pull everyone out immediately.” She held up a hand. “We’re captured him – his name is Agent Parker. He’s in captivity at our new base.”

“What do you need from me?”

“He’s only agreed to talk to you. We need information, Saverin. We need to know who he sold the device too.”

“Why me?”

M looks away and Eduardo feels a rush of adrenaline; it’s enough to make him get to his feet and take a step forward. It’s the thrill of the hunt, of the chase; but it’s also the certainty that she’s not telling him something.

“He was once what you are.” M says finally, softly. “An outstanding agent. We were…close.”

“Romantically?”

“No. Of course not, don’t be stupid. But he was an orphan, like you. I took him in, and he betrayed me, so I gave him up.” She pauses. “He’s supposed to be dead. I had no idea he was still alive.”

 

Agent Parker is shifty and flashy at the same time; Eduardo lets Parker observe him and brings up M whenever he thinks Parker is relaxed. Parker’s reaction: wild eyes, paranoia, and fury, make Eduardo think he’s quite unhinged.

“Why did you want to talk to me?” He asks finally, the most direct he’s ever been.

Parker leers at him. “Because sooner or later she’ll betray you, too. I wanted you to remember me. I wanted you to look at your future. They’ll forget about you and leave you for the dogs and you’ll be all alone, just like me.”

“Who has The Facebook?” Eduardo keeps his voice calm. Parker smiles, sickly-sweet and dangerous. He doesn’t say another word.

 

“He’s set it up so it will release five agents name every week,” M tells Eduardo tiredly, afterwards. “There’s a signal and we’re going to try and trace it, but it’s going to take our best hacker, Q.”

“Do you have any idea why he’s doing this?”

“Revenge, perhaps.” She sighs. “He knew the risks when he signed up, knew duty to his country is more important than his life. But torture does things to a person.”

“He seems unhinged.”

“Go with Q,” M orders. “Help him crack the signal, the code. We need The Facebook back.”

 

Eduardo encounters a young, surly faced, curly haired man waiting for him in Q’s office. His hands are in the pockets of a large GAP hoodie and he’s wearing Adidas and flip-flops. Eduardo wonders absently if this is M’s nephew, or perhaps an intern – he would never hire such an unprofessionally dressed intern, but his standards are not M16’s standards.

“Hello,” Eduardo says politely. “I’m here to see Q.”

The kid nods, not looking at him.

Eduardo waits.

“Will you tell me when he is going to arrive, please?” He says finally, losing patience. This makes the kid smirk. He gives Eduardo a flatly amused stare.

“I’ve actually been waiting for you, 007,” his voice doesn’t crack as expected and Eduardo mentally estimates him to be 21, at the most. “Mark Zuckerberg, Quartermaster. You can call me Q.”

“ _You’re_ Q?” Eduardo looks at the ratty sweatshirt, the stained cargo pants, the skinny white feet in the too-big flip-flops. “You…You still have spots.”

“And I hacked into M16’s database when I was 16,” Mark says flatly. “Age has no bearing on my abilities.”

He turns to the screen that dominates most of the room: an ever-changing helix revolves slowly on it. “This is what I’ve traced Parker’s signal too.”

“Is that a DNA sequence?”

“It’s a highly sophisticated encryption method. Only 7 people in the world know how to use it.”

Eduardo nods; M had mentioned Parker’s technical prowess. “Are we associated with any of those 7 people? Can we call on them to break it?”

Mark shoots him a look, eyes narrowed. “Are you doubting my abilities, 007?”

“You just said –”

“I neglected to mention that I invented this,” Mark tells him.

Eduardo shuts up.

 

He watches Mark try to crack the code, watches the helix change into other geometrical shapes; Mark growls and swears softly under his breath, but keeps working. His typing never ceases; Eduardo has the distinct impression that Mark could do this while asleep.

“Why is it still changing?” Eduardo asks after a quarter of an hour. He comes to stand next to Mark. The younger boy – man, he supposed – smells like pine and Red Bull. It’s not altogether unpleasant.

“Without a key I can’t make it line up to let me in,” Mark explains absently. He’s biting his lip, eyes glued to the screen. Eduardo catches him looking at that red mouth and looks away, hurriedly. Mark doesn’t seem to notice. “I can guess his key, or muscle my way in eventually, but it will take some time.”  
“M said I was to help you,” Eduardo says after a minute.

“Yes. You’re the one Parker’s taken a liking too. You’re the one that last talked to him. She thinks that he gave you a clue, perhaps.”

“Surely M knows him better than I do.”

“I already tried all of her guesses,” Mark said flatly. “Plus she’s not very helpful right now.”

“She’s upset,” Eduardo says after a minute. “She feels this is her fault.”

“Well that’s stupid,” Mark tells him. “It’s not. She did her job.” He shakes his head. “The point is, I need you, not her.”

 _I need you_.

_The people need us._

Eduardo likes to be needed.

“Okay,” he says after a minute. “Try…”

 

They try everything Eduardo can think of. M’s name, Agent Parker’s original name, his partner’s names, the names of his lovers, every word Parker said to Eduardo in their interview. Nothing works.

Mark is pacing, chewing on his lip again. Eduardo has unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and is watching Mark, unconsciously staring at his mouth.

“M said he was an orphan,” Eduardo says finally. He doesn’t say, _like me_. “Do you know the name of the road he lived on, or his family estate?”

Mark looks it up. “Spotify,” he says after a minute. “He lived at a place called Spotify.”

“Try that.”

It works. Eduardo stands behind Mark and watches the structures line up; and then something large and red flashes across the screen and Mark starts typing furiously.

“Oh – Fuck. He’s. Shit.”

It must be really bad, because Mark doesn’t strike Eduardo as inarticulate. Just the opposite. Articulate, smart, and so very young. He underlines the last part mentally and circles it for good measure.

“He’s hacked into our system. It was a trap.”

Mark turns to him but Eduardo is already moving, hurrying down stairs to Parker’s cell, snarling _get out of the way_ at the blank eyed interns he passes.

Parker’s gone. The guards are down. Eduardo checks their pulses – strong – and leaves them, noting the air-duct is wide open and following it down a tunnel that leads into something so deep it must be below even the metro system.

His earpiece crackles into life.

“Eduardo.” It’s the first time Mark has said his name. “Where are you?”

“In a tunnel. Can you track me off –”

“I am.” Mark cuts him off. Eduardo grins ruefully to himself. “I can’t – ah.” He hums to himself, sounding self-satisfied. Eduardo wants to hear that noise again.

“You have any idea where Parker’s going?”

“The tunnel you’re in has a number of service doors. You’ll be able to tell if they’re opened. I suggest you just follow him and then I can track him using the Metro cameras.”

The tunnel does have service doors; Eduardo almost trips over the lip of one of them, one that footprints lead too. “It’s stuck.”

“Put your back into it.” Mark tells him absently.

“Easy for you to say!” Eduardo snaps. “What are you, 5’9 and 120 pounds?”

“135, thank you,” Mark says after a minute. “There’s a training coming. I suggest you push.”

Eduardo ends up shooting the door. His earpiece crackles into life again, frantic.

“Is Parker shooting at you? Are you hurt?!”

“Are you doubting my abilities?” Eduardo parrots back to him, but he’s smiling. “I shot the door to open it. I’m fine.”

Mark doesn’t say anything. Eduardo wonders if he’s embarrassed at being so concerned.

“I’m flattered by your concern,” he offers, unable to resist needling Mark, wishing he could be there to watch Mark flush.

“The agency’s concern,” Mark corrects him. “We can’t afford to lose another agent.”

Eduardo ignores this. The concern in Mark’s voice had been real.

 

“Where’s M?” Eduardo asks as he walks down a hallway, following Parker’s footsteps.

“Testifying at Buckingham Palace. Why?”

“Testifying? Nevermind. He’s going after her. This tunnel leads to a train that goes there, doesn’t it?”

Silence. Eduardo guesses Mark must be pulling up the city plans and the train roots. “Yesss,” Mark breathes, the sound being pulled from him. “We must get her to safety.”

“But we need to drawn him out, as well,” Eduardo says. “Can you radio Agent Lee? Have them bring her to a safeplace. Not our base, because he’ll just wait for her to leave. Somewhere distant and cut off.”

When Mark speaks again, his voice is very soft. “She can go to my family’s estate,” he suggests. “Skyfall, in Northern Scotland.”

Eduardo turns around, starts heading back to base. “Will you give me directions? I’ll take her.”

“I’m coming with you,” Mark snaps.

Eduardo pauses. “It will be dangerous. Are you trained for the field?”

“Of course I am,” Mark’s voice is flat. “It’s my home, Eduardo. I’m coming.”

 

M meets them back at base, where Eduardo and Mark are waiting for her. She’s clearly shaken; Eduardo wonders if he should offer her a brandy or give her a hug.

“Nice to see you two have met,” she says when they get in the car. She’s in the backseat; Eduardo’s driving and Mark’s in the passenger seat with his laptop, leaving a complicated digital trail for Parker to follow.

“Yes,” Eduardo says. “They keep getting younger and younger.”

Mark’s mouth twitches but he doesn’t say anything.

“He’s the age you were when we recruited you. Twenty-three isn’t that young,” Eduardo can _hear_ M’s raised eyebrows. “Or are you feeling superior in your old age of twenty-eight? Ready to settle down with the wife and kids, are you?”

“Settling down isn’t really my style,” Eduardo mutters. “Neither is a wife.”

Mark’s mouth twitches again. M barks a short laugh before falling silent.

 

They drive into the night, switching cards just outside of London. M falls asleep; Mark stows away his computer and gives Eduardo terse, muttered directions.

“Are you not happy to be going back home?” Eduardo asks after a minute.

“No,” Mark says shortly.

 _Orphans make the best recruits_ , Eduardo remembers, and says nothing.

“Did you really make $300,000 off of betting on the future of oil shares, or is that your cover?”

“That story’s true,” Eduardo smiles. “It was the summer between my freshmen and sophomore year of college.”

“Where did you go?”

“Oxford. You?”

“Harvard.”

“An American school?”

“I’m American,” Mark says. “I guess M16 doesn’t care. I have British citizenship now.”  
“We like to have the best,” Eduardo murmurs. Mark smiles.

“You’re not native either,” Mark says and Eduardo glances at him. “I read your file,” Mark admits.

“Is that a routine of yours? Snooping?”

“Research,” Mark corrects.

“That’s hardly fair,” Eduardo says to the steerwheeling. “You must know everything about me, and I only know your name, age, and alma mater.”

“My parents died in a plane crash when I was 8,” Mark says after a minute.

“I’m so sorry,” Eduardo says, but Mark shakes his head.

“Your parents died too. I know you understand.” He pauses. “I’m afraid of flying. I like red vines. I have a dog named Beast. I like Applemartinis. I am not very good at sleeping.”

“Is that everything there is too know about you?” It seems like such a random smattering of facts, but Eduardo is touched by Mark’s honesty.

“Yes,” Mark says. “All that matters, I think.”

They’re silent after that. Eduardo can’t help but notice Mark’s hands curled in his lap, and thinks absently about squeezing one of them.

 

The house is old and foreboding. Eduardo drives up the driveway slowly. Mark is looking around, frowning.

“Is it different?” Eduardo asks.

“No, not at all,” Mark replies. He sounds bothered by this. “You should wake up M. I’m sure Parker is on his way. We have to prepare.”

\---

Skyfall is equipped with a small armory – Mark admits, with a twist of his mouth, that his father liked to hunt – and a Priest’s Hole. Eduardo makes M promise to run using it if need be. He can’t make Mark promise the same thing.

“I’ll leave when you do,” Mark says stubbornly. Eduardo decides not to argue. He cannot imagine returning to his childhood home after all these years, cannot imagine trying to defend it from siege.

 

They end up waiting for Parker with guns in their laps and belts of ammo looped around their persons. M has devised several booby traps; Mark grunts when he sees this, but does not protest.

Waiting for Parker is quiet, boring, and endless. M goes to sit by herself in the living room leaving Mark and Eduardo sitting at the kitchen table.

“This might ruin your house,” Eduardo says after a minute.

“I know,” Mark says. He looks closed off, eyes guarded and mouth bitten-red. Eduardo places a hand on Mark’s shoulder before he can stop himself.

Mark freezes, then leans into the touch, eyes fluttering shut.

“Careful,” he says. “My spots might rub off on you.”

Eduardo squeezes his shoulder and does not reply.

 

Parker arrives with several other men. Eduardo picks some of them off from a distance; when they are close enough to return fire, he ducks and retreats, barring the door. M stands with Mark. She is smiling at him.

“It was very kind of you to volunteer your home, Q,” she says. “I deeply appreciate it.”  
“It might as well do some good,” Mark says, shrugging off her compliments.

“They’re here,” Eduardo interrupts. “Be ready.”

 

When Parker’s men break down the door and shoot at the mirror, Eduardo is ready for them. He shoots the first two that enter, then has to retreat when they return fire. Parker is in the very back, but will go for M; he wants to kill her, doesn’t want anyone else to do that. M said this in a detached sort of way when they were preparing, and Eduardo agrees with her.

He and Mark are ready for next few men, shooting to kill rather than to injure; they don’t want any surprises, don’t want to leave anyone alive to sneak up on them.

There’s a small explosion from M dropping the booby-trapped chandelier onto more men; then silence.

Eduardo looks around, trying to find M, or Mark. M sneaks into view, pressing herself against the opposite wall. Mark is nowhere to be found.

Then:

“Nice of you to join us, Agent Parker,” Mark says quietly. Eduardo edges around the room, to the doorway. He can see Mark, but not Parker, but he can hear Parker approaching, hear his boots on the wooden floor.

“Lovely house you have,” Parker says amiably. “Tell me, where is M.” he sounds innocently curious “Is she going to make you die for her too?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Mark says quietly. “I’m giving you one last chance. Surrender. You will be taken into custody and put on trial.”

“No.” Parker says, simply. He strolls into view. “Surrender isn’t in the deck of cards for me, I’m afraid.”

“Well _I’m afraid_ you don’t have a choice,” Mark says, parroting Parker’s words back to him.

Eduardo shoots Parker just as Parker raises his gun.

Mark staggers; Parker crumbles to the floor. It is Mark that Eduardo goes too, Mark that he checks the pulse of; Mark is alive, and his eyes flutter open even as Eduardo starts tearing up his shirt to make Mark a bandage.

“I’m…fine,” Mark says. “Nothing vital. Make sure he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Eduardo tells him, pressing down on Mark’s wound. “I’m sorry I didn’t shoot earlier. I was waiting to see –”

“I know.” Mark says. “It’s fine. Eduardo. It’s ok.”

“No,” Eduardo mutters, shaking his head.

“Is M safe?” Mark interrupts. “Is Parker taken care of?”

“Yes, but,”  
“Wardo,” Mark says, eyes slipping closed. “We did it, Wardo. We did it.”

\---

Eduardo ends up visiting Mark in the hospital as soon as he’s given his report and seen M safely back to base. Mark is in London, having been airlifted there; M spared no expense for the man who helped save her life.

Mark is asleep when Eduardo gets there, his shoulder heavily bandaged, the heart moniter beeping gently.

Eduardo sits by his side and takes Mark’s hand. Mark’s going to be fine, he knows that. But he also knows that Mark did an incredibly brave, incredibly selfless thing and got hurt because of it. There’s no way around it. It’s his duty, but it’s awful.

And if Eduardo had shot Parker sooner, Mark wouldn’t be in the hospital at all.

He looks up to see Mark watching him, face unreadable.

“What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you’ll live,” Eduardo says. He tries to say it jokingly but it falls flat. “I – I had to see you.”

Mark just looks at him.

“I had to see you with my own eyes. Make sure you were okay –”

“Do you want to go for a drink when I’m discharged?” Mark interrupts him and Eduardo just stares at him. “You can get one of those ‘shaken not stirred things’ and I’ll get an apple martini, and maybe I can show you my flat.”

“Is it as impressive as Skyfall?”

“Not at all. Much dirtier. You’d think it was a dorm room.” Mark half-smiles. “But you can meet Beast.”

“I would like that,” Eduardo says. He’s still holding Mark’s hand. When he tries to let go, Mark doesn’t let him.

“Though,” Eduardo admits, “I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

“Yeah?” Mark asks. His American accent peeks through, and he’s smiling, cheeks dimpling.

Eduardo leans over and kisses him. Mark tastes like red vines and mint toothpaste. Eduardo raises a hand to Mark’s curls, moving to sit half on the bed, and nips at Mark’s mouth. Mark complies, lets Eduardo taste him and memorize the shape of his teeth.

It’s only after Eduardo draws back that he realizes Mark is panting, eyes dark, and that the heart monitor has gone wild.

“When are you being discharged?” Eduardo demands gruffly.

Mark grins at him. “Another day or so. Think you can wait that long?”

“No,” Eduardo grouses, but he’s smiling. He squeezes Mark’s hand. Mark squeezes back.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me on [tumblr!](http://marnz.tumblr.com/) prompts welcome.


End file.
